Friday, October 5, 2012

Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB), on Wednesday, introduced a
test of service according to which, Facebook users will have to pay $7 to make
their posts more conspicuous in their friends’ newsfeed. This service was rolled out to the U.S and
twenty other countries, much like a test drive.

By introducing it to only a section of the users on
Facebook, the social-networking site wants to gauge the reactions and the
amount of popularity, or criticism this service will receive. But they are
hopeful about the conditions, because the News Feed in the homepage is usually
filled with various different posts and activities by various different people.
By paying the site, the users can amp up the conspicuousness of their own
posts. So in order to make a particular status message more prominent, or to
promote the adoption of abandoned kittens, all one really needs to do is pay
$7. What with the news feed of many different people together, and the
advertisements coming from different advertisers, this would be a welcome
solution for people who want their message conveyed to as many of their
friends, as is possible.

Abhishek Doshi, an engineer on Facebook, put up a
post regarding the promotion of the new service. According to him, if a user
wanted to make one of his/her activities more prominent, then paying seven
dollars would make it so. The test however, is being limited to people who have
less than 5,000 friends and subscribers on the site.

This is lucrative for the site, because it controls
the algorithms which control the information being given out on the news feed.
It should operate in a way, so as to show the interesting news on the homepage
newsfeed, but the very fact that Facebook controls the algorithms, also makes
it an opportunity to buck up the finances.

Strictly speaking, however, Facebook is still free
for all, although people are raising their eyebrows at how the phrase “free for
all” is becoming a little troublesome, with all these stipulations coming in.
But the site needs to make up for what its losing out on, what with advertisers
backing out of ads on Facebook.